Maybe another time. (But only if you actually would like to say yes another time. Don’t lead people on.)

As you may have noticed, less explanation is better. That’s the key.

Tactics for worriers

If you’re worried the other person might think you’re being rude for saying no, you can always follow up your “no” with a question about what they’ve got planned or what they’re involved in.

For example, if you’re asked to buy something for their child’s fundraiser, you could follow up that no with a questions about what grade their child is in now, or how long they’ve been a boy scout. That shows interest in the other person’s life and child, while changing the subject at the same time.

Should someone press you when you don’t want to give the real reason you’re saying no (“I will poke myself in the eye if I have to sit through another ______.” or “I can’t even pay the water bill this month, let alone give you $5 for cake.”) just repeat yourself until they get the picture and stop pressing you. Being a broken record works, especially if you do it cheerfully.

After all, they are the ones being rude or clueless, not you. Most people are just going to move on though, so chances are you won’t have to use the broken record method too frequently.

Honesty works too

Finally, there’s nothing wrong with honesty — especially when the reason you’re saying no is either due to a lack of funds or because you’ve got different priorities.

For example, when we were paying off our debt, I flat out told people who wanted us to do things that weren’t in our budget, “Nope, sorry, we’re getting out of debt first. That’s our priority right now.”

No one seemed offended. In fact several people got interested in how we were doing it, asked questions about our process, and shared that they were trying to do the same.

So give no a try. The next time you feel like saying no, go ahead and just say no. You might be pleasantly surprised at how it goes.

3 thoughts on “How to Say No Gracefully, For When Saying No is Hard to Do”

We own a small business and get asked for donations A LOT. Telling people that we have reached our donation limit usually works for the latter part of the year. We already perform reduced fee or sometimes free work to many charities so feel that we are helping our community a lot already. Since I participate in my children’s many school, band and sport fundraisers I never feel obligated to buy from others although girl scout cookies are something that I can never have enough of :)

Thanks for this post! I didn’t think of just repeating myself when saying no. I always awkwardly find myself explaining (I’m not really comfortable saying I’m short on cash… I feel like it’s the same reason/excuse every time). I’m definitely going to try to simply repeat myself from now on! Thanks again :)